And now, a conversation about the state of local journalism withC. Fraser Smith, a veteran scribe who spent more than 50 years as an award-winning reporter and columnist.
Over the last decade, 2,000 newspapers have shut down. About 30,000 reporting jobs have vanished, leaving communities across the country with little or no local news coverage. The number of reporters in The Baltimore Sun newsroom these days is exponentially smaller than it was before the internet became the preferred drug of advertisers.
The Sun News Guild has joined local philanthropists and others in an effort to purchase the Sun from its parent company, which is controlled by a New York hedge fund.
Fraser Smith spent a good chunk of his career at The Baltimore Sun, as well as right here at WYPR, where he was our senior news analyst and the host of Inside Maryland Politics. He’s also written several books, including a biography of William Donald Schaefer, a book about the history of civil rights in Maryland and an exploration of the death of college basketball star Len Bias. His latest book is a memoir called The Daily Miracle: A Memoir of Newspapering.
